A Jack Tate SAS Thriller

‘I have the package,’ Salter stated over the crashing of the waves.

‘We have company. Monégasque patrol boat.’

‘Have that. Am proceeding as planned.’

Tate ended the call.

He slowed the Soleil 35’ as he started to approach Beaulieu-sur-Mer. The faster he motored the quicker he would be able to get ashore, but a slower approach would raise fewer French eyebrows. Tate scanned the shoreline with his binoculars. Apart from general pleasure craft he could see no official-looking vessels or watchers on the shore. Only now did he repack the H&K into the kit bag and zip it up. He woke up his iPhone and called the team driver. ‘How are we?’

‘All clear, Guvnor,’ the SAS man growled back in deadpan Glaswegian.

‘Police?’

‘None.’

‘ETA seven zero minutes.’

‘Have that.’

Tate throttled back the twin Volvo engines further as he followed the channel to enter the marina. Unlike its counterpart in Monaco, which was protected from the sea by the curvature of the bay, the Beaulieu-sur-Mer marina and yacht club was fronted by a man-made breakwater. Eyes darting in every direction from behind his dark Oakleys, he entered the marina proper and immediately made a turn to starboard and motored past the pontoon-mounted Total petrol station to the first row of berths. This was where the largest of the vessels were moored, serious powerboats and cruisers.

Four berths in, there was a gap between two imposing vessels. Tate took in the name of the largest. It had “Princess 72” printed on the side. The other was shrouded in a large cover and looked as though it hadn’t been moved in a while. Both towered above his own boat and would provide some cover. He slowly backed the Soleil 35’ into the berth, and cut the engine. Tate secured the boat and cast his eyes around the marina. This end was quiet, and there was no one obviously watching him, but that probably wouldn’t last for long. Tate quickly scanned the boat’s interior for spent shell cases. He found a handful, the rest having been ejected and whipped away into the sea, and put them back into his kit bag. He then removed a packet of alcohol wipes and started to rub down all the surfaces. After thrusting the used wipes into his kit bag, Tate then hefted it onto his shoulder and stepped off the Soleil 35’ for the last time, making sure to leave the boat’s keys in the ignition as an open invitation to any light-fingered passers-by. If it got stolen it would muddy the waters even further, and if not, the police would confirm that the boat had been bought and used by the known Russian hitman Egor Blok, or someone who looked very much like him.

Without pausing he leisurely followed the perimeter walkway towards the main entrance. In front of him the sun glinted off the white-walled villas of the town, and behind them rose mountainous hills like the jagged spine of some ancient beast.

Tate reached the main car park as a gunmetal grey Renault Trafic SpaceClass executive people carrier turned in from the coast road. Without looking at the office or the security box, Tate pulled back the sliding door and climbed inside.

‘Crap here, isn’t it?’ James “Paddy” Fox’s voice was gruff, guttural, Glaswegian and laced with sarcasm. ‘Neither a stick of rock, nor a donkey to be seen.’

Tate rolled his eyes; he was used to the Glaswegian’s dour humour. ‘Any issues?’

‘None.’

They left the marina complex and joined the one-way system, which would enable them to drive out of town in the direction of their second rendezvous point. Both men had memorised the local area and knew the streets as well as any local taxi driver.

Tate opened his line again with Salter. ‘ETA?’

‘Five minutes,’ Salter reported over the thundering of waves in the background.

The interior of the Renault fell silent for the next few minutes. The veteran SAS operative continuously scanned the road and his mirrors, whilst Tate sat by the door with his H&K at the ready. Stuck behind a slow-moving local bus on the narrow roads, their progress was slower than envisaged and by the time Fox pulled the Renault in next to the scooter parking area, overlooking Plage la Calanque, eight minutes had elapsed. Unwilling to leave the vehicle and visually tie himself with it, Tate sat with his eyes fixed on the path leading down to the beach. Another minute rolled past and despite the air con, Tate felt a wetness at his temples. He absentmindedly scratched his face with his left hand. Motorists passed them and such was the ubiquity of the vehicle’s use as a taxi that even though it was illegally parked, no one paid them a second glance.

And then someone did.

‘Plod,’ Fox said.

‘I see them.’

‘It’s bloody Laurel and Hardy!’

To their left a pair of police officers were strolling towards them. The first was shortish and rotund whilst his partner was gangly. At that exact same moment there was movement from the opposite direction, from the beach path. The broad-shouldered figure of Chris Salter appeared. He was wearing a cut-off scuba outfit, carrying a black holdall and ushering a thinner man towards the road. Tate impatiently watched them approach. The road was too narrow for the Renault to turn and they couldn’t reverse against the oncoming traffic, not with a pair of advancing gendarmes. The only option Tate could see was to draw the policemen’s attention away from the van and towards him. For the second time that afternoon he knew the mission was more important than he was.

‘Change of plan,’ Tate said. ‘I’m going walkabout.’

Fox turned in his seat, a quizzical look on his craggy face. ‘You sure?’

‘No other option. You get to the safe house and I’ll see you there.’

Minus his H&K and bag, Tate opened the sliding door of the executive Renault and stepped out. He’d know immediately if his description had been circulated. For the gendarmes to link him to the attack in Monaco was acceptable but Salter and the man he was accompanying had to get into the van. Tate shut the door, and swaying like a drunk, ambled in the direction of the policemen. After several steps he let himself slip off the kerb and stumble into the road. An oncoming car sounded its horn. Tate shouted in angry Russian and raised his middle finger. He stepped back onto the pavement and then pretended that he’d just registered the presence of the gendarmes.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen! Could you help me? I’m looking for an exciting place to drink!’ Tate said, in Russian-accented English.

Both Frenchmen had scowls on their faces, disgust at dealing with a belligerent, drunk foreigner rather than fear or apprehension at confronting a violent suspect. So far so good.

The nearest of the two, the gangly one, spoke in French.

Tate shrugged.

The second officer took over, switching to English. ‘Show me your ID.’

‘ID?’ Tate frowned, swayed.

‘Passport. Papers. Documents.’

‘Ah, I understand.’ Tate slowly reached his right hand into the back pocket of his trousers. As he did so he turned his head just enough to see the door on the opposite side of the Renault open and the two men get in. Tate casually retrieved a wallet as the Renault drove past. ‘I have these papers.’

The second officer grabbed the wallet and examined its contents. ‘You have broken several laws: drunk in public, jaywalking and using obscene language.’

‘Have I?’ Tate shrugged, innocently. Perhaps he had, or perhaps this was a shakedown; either way it gave the rest of the team time to make good their escape.

‘Yes, you have! There is a penalty for each of these offences.’ The officer now had Tate’s euros in one hand and the leather wallet in the other.

A wide smile formed under Tate’s beard, and he nodded. ‘Surely there is some financial accommodation that could be made? Could I pay a, how do you say it, “on-the-spot fine”?’

Laurel spoke in French to Hardy who nodded then addressed Tate. ‘My colleague has informed me of the required fine. You have here enough to cover it.’

‘That is good news.’

‘It is.’ Hardy handed him back the empty wallet.

There was a crackle of a radio transmission. Laurel frowned. He unclipped his radio with his left hand and spoke into it, in at first slow then progressively faster French. The fatter officer’s eyes widened. A vehicle passed them, a seagull squawked overhead but other than this the only sound was the muffled voice on the other end of the radio, at police dispatch. Tate swayed slightly on the spot. As Laurel listened, his eyes narrowed and he took a step forward, shortening the distance between them. The man’s right hand traversed towards his baton. He said something to his colleague.

With his left hand still full of euros, Hardy started to reach with his right for his baton. The time for talking was over. The two batons meant that this wasn’t going to be a fair fight, and it couldn’t be, because Tate would win that with ease. He had to be quick and he had to be fast and the two officers, who had suddenly been reminded of their real jobs, had to go down. Hard. Tate threw his empty wallet at the face of the first gendarme, stepped sideways and drove his elbow into the face of the second. Tate followed the elbow with a fist and the officer collapsed into the road. Turning on the spot, Tate kicked the first officer, who was still gawping at him, in the groin. A fist to the side of the head landed him next to his colleague. Tate booted the pair of them again, just to stop them from getting up, grabbed his wallet and his money, and sprinted away in the opposite direction to the van.

There were shocked faces and a yell of outrage from another pedestrian and a few cars beeped their horns as they went past, but no one attempted to stop him or to give chase. An elderly couple moved aside, both cringing as he ran by.

‘That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into,’ Tate muttered to himself as he left the scene.

He knew the road layout and had agreed the route with Fox. Unless the van wasted time negotiating the one-way system again it would take the mini-roundabout and drive back past the two police officers. Tate ran up the street, towards the salmon-pink-walled Royal Riviera hotel on the corner. Now out of sight of the two gendarmes and anyone who had seen the altercation, he slowed to a walk. He pulled off his baggy shirt, exposing the white muscle vest he was wearing underneath, and balled it into his left hand.

Tate carried on up the Avenue Jean Monnet and paused at the access road for the Hotel Delcloy complex. A taxi entered with two passengers in the rear. He allowed himself now to glance back down the avenue before and saw the Renault round the corner. He let it pass him and carry on up the hill. His phone vibrated in his pocket.

‘Last chance for a lift. There’s a junction up ahead; I’ll meet you after it on the left,’ Fox stated.

‘Negative,’ Tate replied. ‘Get to the safe house.’

‘Aye.’ He heard Fox audibly sigh. ‘Have that.’

Tate ended the call.

Tate knew he wasn’t going to blend in anywhere, and as long as the van wasn’t linked to him, that was all that mattered. Confronting the gendarmes had been a dumb decision but his only play: it made him the sole target. He stayed where he was, hidden from direct view of the passing traffic, and waited for the taxi to re-emerge. He heard sirens scream down the hill. The now empty taxi reappeared.

Tate flagged it down and asked the driver to take him to the Hotel Negresco on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais. The driver started to complain but a fifty-euro note made him change his mind.

Tate sat low in the back. The traffic become heavier as the taxi passed through the centre of Villefranche-sur-Mer and then entered the outskirts of Nice.

*

Forty minutes later Tate arrived back at the safe house. He’d covered his tracks by ducking in and out of the Hotel Negresco via different doors, and then taking a second taxi that dropped him two roads away from the safe house. He went through the large gates and up the gravel drive that led towards the villa.

The exterior walls were painted a pastel yellow and it was surrounded by a bright green lawn and palm trees.

Salter, now dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt, secured the gates behind him. ‘Fancied a bit of shopping, did we? Our guest is in the living room with Paddy.’

‘Cheers.’ Tate walked up the steps to the entrance of the villa. Inside the temperature was several degrees cooler, due in part to the high ceilings, white walls and white marble floor. Tate crossed the voluminous entrance hall and entered the living room. The space was sparsely furnished. One figure sat at a table whilst another stood at the far end, framed by the window.

‘You’re alive then?’ Fox noted with mock surprise.

Tate shut the door and walked farther into the room. ‘Just.’

The other man now stood and faced Tate. He was equally as tall as Fox but a lot narrower, and thirty years younger. ‘This is the man who shot me!’

‘It is,’ Fox said, a slim smile forming on his face. The veteran SAS man had most recently been operating as a security adviser to several royal houses in the Middle East, whilst in fact being on the SIS payroll. It had been Fox who had recruited their guest as an SIS asset, suggested that he defect and set Tate’s mission in progress.

‘Paddy, you personally guaranteed my safety.’ The man’s accent was Oxbridge; in fact Tate thought he sounded more English than he did. ‘Without your assurances I would not have agreed to this, but it is this man who made my escape possible.’

Tate took in the figure of His Royal Highness Salman bin Mohammad Al Nayef, the man they had been sent to extract, the man who had made a deal to pass on detailed information regarding his uncle’s business and personal links to an alleged new terrorist threat. Al Nayef may well have been a member of Saudi Arabia’s extended royal family, but he wasn’t getting anything more than a “sir” from Tate. It was something the man needed to get used to. ‘I’m happy you made it here in one piece.’

A broad smile appeared on Al Nayef’s face. ‘Did you see how I stood up, and waved my fist at you?’

‘I did,’ Tate said.

‘It was something I saw in a film. It felt like the right thing to do.’

Tate humoured him. ‘It was. You looked brave.’

Al Nayef shrugged and dipped his head, abashed like a teenager. ‘Was I convincing?’

‘Totally.’

‘I practised.’

Tate frowned, concerned. ‘Where was this? Did anyone see you?’

‘No. No one saw me. I was on my own, in my cabin. I watched several Hollywood action films to study their technique.’

‘Armchair warriors are the most dangerous,’ Fox said.

Tate coughed back a laugh.

Al Nayef went on, ‘And like a Hollywood film you used blanks in your gun, but it was highly realistic.’

‘Extremely,’ Tate agreed. In fact, his first and third magazines had been loaded with standard rounds; it was only the second that he had “shot” Al Nayef with that had contained blanks.

Al Nayef extended his hand to shake Tate’s. ‘All because of you I am here. You are a good man.’

‘But his fashion sense is a bit shite,’ Fox said.

Tate shook Al Nayef’s hand. ‘I’ll leave you both to it.’

‘Cheers, sonny,’ Fox said, and winked.

Unlike everyone else, Tate still looked like an extra from Miami Vice. He shut the door and took the stairs to the first floor. Stage one of the mission was over, but it was far too soon to relax. The authorities in Monaco, France and neighbouring Italy would all by now be aware that an attack had taken place. Rescue boats would be searching for Al Nayef, or his body, and Tate’s description of course had been circulated. Tate thought about Al Nayef. He’d seemed more excited than scared, as though it was an adventure and he wasn’t running for his life, as though he’d not quite comprehended the seriousness of his situation.

Perhaps if he saw what Tate was about to do now, the true precariousness of the situation would hit him? But Tate knew Al Nayef must not see what was in the room he was about to enter.

Tate walked into the master bedroom and shut the door behind him. Plastic sheeting covered the room and reminded Tate of an episode of Dexter. A pile of crumpled, damp clothes lay on the floor. A naked male body was positioned squarely on a plastic sheet next to this. The corpse was intact with the exception of a missing lower jaw, but the face had been mutilated. Deep lacerations cut right across it; the nose was missing and the cheekbones broken. The dead man’s unrecognisable face looked as though it had got in the way of a heavy ship’s propeller.

A supply of surgical masks, gloves and white protective coveralls lay on the bed. Tate donned a set then moved to the corpse and dressed it with difficulty in Al Nayef’s clothes.

Ten minutes later Tate stood back to admire his grotesque creation. This had once been someone’s son, perhaps someone’s brother, husband or father. An abrupt sense of remorse tightened his chest. He had once also been someone’s son, and so had his brother but unlike the corpse before him they both lived whilst their parents did not. And the man who had murdered their parents – Ruslan Akulov – was still free. Tate felt his remorse turn to anger.

‘Do we know who he was?’ Fox said, as he appeared behind Tate, a cup of coffee in his hand.

Tate answered without looking up. ‘No idea. All I know is that he was delivered here and is fresh enough to pass for our friend downstairs.’

‘Dental records?’

‘That’s probably why the lower jaw is missing, too tricky to copy.’

‘Poor bastard.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I didn’t mean laughing boy here, I meant Al Nayef. Today he’s royalty, tomorrow he’s just Joe Public.’

Tate stretched his back. ‘That’s the name SIS should have put on his new passport.’

A smile split Fox’s craggy face. ‘I haven’t given you yours yet, have I?’

‘No.’ Tate frowned.

Fox let his smile turn into a grin. ‘I wouldn’t shave until you’ve checked it out.’

Tate removed the coveralls, gloves and mask. ‘So can I have it?’

Fox reached inside the pocket of his denim jacket. ‘Here.’

It was a genuine United Kingdom passport, and had been aged in order to not rouse suspicion. Tate looked at the photograph page. He closed his eyes and sighed. It was a real photo of himself, with a sensible haircut but it had a Hulk Hogan, horseshoe-style moustache that drooped around either side of his mouth.

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